Biffa Municipal Gets 5 Star Safety Award

31st March 2015 – Biffa’s municipal division has received a five star award from the British Safety Council (BSC) in recognition of its efforts to improve health and safety at work, and to protect the environment.

This is the third year in a row that the division has been awarded five stars for health and safety, and the first time it has received five stars for environmental management.

Biffa’s municipal division mainly provides recycling, refuse, street and beach cleansing, and recycling centre management services for 35 local authorities across Britain. It employs 3,000 staff who make around three million recycling and refuse collections from over 1½ million households each week

The BSC’s January audit made a detailed examination of Biffa’s operations at its South Bucks contract where it provides recycling and refuse collections, as well as street cleansing services. BSC auditors reviewed documentation, records and record-keeping, observed and interviewed staff, and scrutinised management systems and controls, emergency systems, reporting of accidents, near misses and ill health, and evidence of improvement.

Auditors commended the division for its focus on staff, as well as its processes and programmes to raise health and safety and environmental standards.

Municipal operations director David Maidman described the audit success as ‘a significant and important validation of our focus on making the workplace as safe as possible.’

He said: “Our 3,000 staff face very real and potentially lethal dangers every day, and we do everything we can to reduce those risks. The BSC’s five star audit is one way of ensuring that what we do is effective and appropriate.”

Chris Marchant, Head of Environment at South Bucks District Council, added: “While it’s important that Biffa delivers its services efficiently and cost-effectively, it’s also very important that it does so safely. We’re delighted that our Biffa team helped secure this important award on behalf of the wider municipal division, and we congratulate them for showing that safe working and productivity can go hand in hand.”

Biffa’s programme of continual safety initiatives has seen its Riddor (legally-reportable incidents, diseases and injuries) rate plummet by almost two-thirds, alongside a 36% reduction in working days lost due to accidents at work.

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